Sunday 17th October 2021
Germany Day of the JU
Loosened Laschet is reconciled with angry party youth
By Maximilian Beer, Münster
At the Junge Union’s Germany Day, Laschet gives a speech that has not been heard from the CDU chief for a long time. The failed candidate for chancellor appears relaxed and combative. One of his possible successors is also a guest – and underpins his creative drive.
In terms of timing and occasion, there were certainly more pleasant dates in Armin Laschet’s life. Just under three weeks have passed since the federal election, and the CDU leader is the main reason for a long, painful defeat. The occasion, the Germany Day: the annual meeting of the Junge Union (JU), which Laschet wanted neither as party leader nor as a candidate for chancellor. It is the first major event by the CDU and CSU since the election debacle.
These are the circumstances. But something seems to have happened with Armin Laschet, who speaks in Münster this Saturday in a way that has not been heard speaking since the evening of the election. Laschet seems relaxed, as if a burden has fallen off him. He formulates clearly and not as convoluted as he was when he announced his departure as party leader. The situation is different now. One thing is certain: everyone knows that their days at the top of the CDU are numbered.
Laschet says sentences like this: “As chairman and candidate for chancellor I am responsible for this result.” Addressed to JU boss Tilman Kuban, who, like other party friends, is asked about his own responsibility: “I am responsible for the election campaign and the campaign – and no one else.” Even the election analysis of the JU, a statement on seven pages, he agrees in almost everything. The Union had reached a point that most of the people in this room had not yet seen – “namely opposition”.
Respect, respect, respect
These are admissions that many young conservatives have missed and to which Laschet often gets the word “respect” in return after his speech in discussions with delegates. Because the conversations in the corridors show it this weekend as well as the requests to speak in the hall – the party youth expects self-assurance: We are responsible for the crisis, and only if we admit it can things get better again.
Laschet hits this note. His attendance alone is reason enough for Tilman Kuban to attest to his “character”. Because someone else did not come to the Halle Münsterland: The rejection of CSU boss Markus Söder determined a number of conversations the day before. It gives Laschet additional weight.
Laschet is likely to think of Söder, the Bavarian sister party and taunts from Munich when he says that you can only get through a tough election campaign if you show solidarity with one another. The virtue of standing together as a union must be relearned by the union. Laschet is addressing two of the buzzwords that determine the weekend: loyalty and confidentiality. “The fact that you can read the CDU federal executive in the live ticker” was a “weakening in the election campaign”.
Laschet defends Schäuble
Another central theme of this Germany Day revolves around the question of how the party base can be better integrated in the future. For example, looking for a new CDU chairman through a member survey. This is what the Junge Union wishes for. A majority of the more than 300 JU delegates are convinced that the party committees have too often made decisions past the grassroots.
Laschet knows that. And yet he makes it clear that he thinks little of calling federal party conferences unrepresentative. On the contrary: They are still able to “represent the breadth of the party”. It’s one of the few moments when he doesn’t have the hall on his side.
Laschet also received applause when he said of Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble: “Such a deserving man does not deserve to be pushed out of office by anyone. I will not tolerate that.” In the debate about a generation change in the Union, it was recently the Bavarian JU chairman Christian Doleschal who urged Schäuble to withdraw from parliament. The Germany Day also experiences a combative Laschet who, unlike Friedrich Merz the day before, does not want to call his party a “restructuring case”.
In the end, the CDU chief leaves as he came, accompanied by warm applause. There is something about reconciliation. “I got a feeling” roars through the hall. This night will be a good one, according to the song of the Black Eyed Peas.
No more “without alternative”
On this day, another leaves no doubt that he wants to play an important role in the reorganization of the CDU. The chairman’s? Jens Spahn doesn’t say that directly. Only this much: “I would like to shape the new CDU.” The health minister and party vice president is one of the possible candidates to succeed Armin Laschet.
The “Time“recently wrote of an idea that Spahn could be part of a team solution. He and the two economic politicians Merz and Carsten Linnemann would therefore be able to come to an understanding. Linnemann would become general secretary, the other two party or parliamentary group leaders. In Münster Spahn emphasizes that he Teams prefers lone fighters. “The running” of the candidates, as he calls it, must come to an end. It is not about “Armin, Friedrich, Jens, Ralph or whoever”.
Spahn recognizes conflict in many places in the Union, a climate of mistrust and a crisis of solidarity. He speaks of the members’ discomfort with the party leadership. “But the decision to run for chancellor as we made it meant a break for many.” Spahn lists the guiding principles of his party: the value of the family, protection for uniformed people. “Even the left-liberal gay who drives home from Berghain at six in the morning wants to be able to sit safely in the subway at the end of the day.”
It is a personal speech at times. Spahn tells of how he was insulted as a “traitor, murderer and gay pig” during the pandemic. There were days when he thought that he would rather be with his family. But it is also a speech that makes it clear that after 16 years of age, many conservatives want to discuss Angela Merkel more, about people and direction, about the Union itself. Applause breaks out in the exhibition hall when Spahn mentions the word that stands for the Merkel era like no other and that he no longer wants to hear: “no alternative”. Tilman Kuban says goodbye to the former JU member with the sentence: “We are also convinced that you should be part of the new team.”